Pursuit of Wisdom is Vapor | Ecclesiastes 1:12-18 | 05/01/26

All right. Well, grace and peace, church

family. It is wonderful to be with you.

Happy Sunday. Happy Mother's Day. Thank

you to all the mothers. Um,

you know, there's nothing nothing

changes your view of women and watching

your wife give birth. And

I just want to say on behalf of all the

guys, thank you for doing that for our

family. Um, and then all the toil and

travail of raising them.

This morning, we're going to interact.

We're going to continue looking at the

book of Ecclesiastes and we want to

explore we want to go with the author as

he explores the relationship of wisdom

or intelligence to the pursuit of what

matters to the pursuit of meaning and

value.

How does wisdom and intelligence help us

to seek to find what it is that we will

finally gain from all of our toil under

the sun after that? After all, that's

the big question the author introduced

to us last week. All this stuff we do,

all this effort we put into things, this

all this stuff we try for, what do we

actually get in the end for all of that?

What does it all matter or mean?

If you haven't been with us for the

first few weeks, we are studying the

book of Ecclesiastes,

which is the grizzled old philosophy

professor of Old Testament books. Think

of like, you know, someone who's kind of

heard it all, smoking his pipe in his

office going like, "How do you know you

know anything?" You know, you don't know

that you're not a butterfly dreaming of

itself as a person.

It's more interested in asking us very

difficult questions than giving us clear

and easy answers.

The author in the beginning is

interested in the question of what's

actually valuable, what actually matters

in the grand scheme of this thing we

call life.

And as he said so far last week, it

looks like nothing matters.

It looks like everything is he is vapor.

Everything is smoke.

Nothing seems to be of actual value

under the sun. It's all like a hot mist

leaving your mouth on a cold early

morning.

The word he we've talked about the last

couple weeks is is a Hebrew word. It's

the word that the ES that our Bible

translates as vanity. Says vanity and

vanity is all is vanity. Hevel of hevel.

All is hevil, like vapor, like smoke.

You can see it. You can grasp at it, but

you can't really take hold of it.

Everything in the world is like that. He

says it it seems to be just beyond our

ability to grasp.

This morning, the author's main

character of the book, Cohel, is going

to ask an obvious first question.

We're looking for meaning. Everything

appears like vapor. But what if we're

really, really smart?

What if we're super duper wise about how

we go about looking for this thing? What

if we applied all the world's wisdom,

all the best education, and we we really

focused on the problem using the best

resources at our disposal and the

brightest minds on Earth? Surely then

we'll be able to detect and determine

what truly matters, what's actually

valuable.

If we devote our best minds and our best

resource to the problems, then we'll

find the answer, right?

You know, we love movies that tell us

that that's not true.

You think about the movie Goodwill

Hunting. You ever seen that movie?

Has anyone heard of that movie? Okay,

most of

sometimes these questions aren't

rhetorical. I'm actually curious. Uh,

you know, you you think of a guy with

the mathematical prowess of a goodwill

of a will hunting and surely with that

amount of of deep comprehension of the

mathematics of the universe, that guy

knows how to create a wise life, right?

Surely with the technological abilities

of a Tony Stark, we'll finally save the

world. Maybe with the the the ability to

to accomplish deductions and account for

small details of like a Sherlock Holmes,

if we're if we're smart like that, we'll

be able to figure out how to deal how to

detect where meaning lies, right? We

love stories about our intellectual

superiors wrestling with the issues of

the world and not finding the answer.

Maybe you've read those books or seen

those movies. Spoiler alert, they never

really actually end up solving the

world's problems.

Will hunting could defeat anyone at

math, but he could not heal himself. He

could not change himself into someone

capable of receiving love. Tony Stark

use his sheer force of will, his

brilliance to defeat Thanos. But as soon

as Tony Stark dies, the next bad guy

shows up. I hear his name is Dr. Doom.

Sherlock can finally outwit Morardi, but

he can't make London stop being filled

with people who sin.

What does it all mean?

What did all these men gain for all

their wisdom? That brings me to my main

point today. Main point. Even wisdom,

even wisdom turns out to be hevil.

Even wisdom turns out to be he. So seek

the God who makes us wise. Please open

your Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 1.

Ecclesiastes 1 · chapter mention

Let me just briefly set the stage for

our reading.

The author introduced the main character

last week, a guy named Cohelv, king of

Jerusalem. And Cohelith has cons that's

the the Hebrew word that we translate as

preacher. It means one who gathers in to

teach. And Cohelith has considered the

nature of life. He's looked around and

concluded everything is he

of he all is he said. And then he frames

the question he's really trying to

resolve like this. He asks, "What does

man gain for all his toil under the sun?

What do we ever really achieve? What do

we ever really get that's permanent?

What do we really accomplish given that

human life just seems to come and go?

The world seems fundamentally unaltered

by anything we do. The cycles of rain

and sun and just keep going on the

perpetual motion machine and there's

nothing that we do that ever seems to

disrupt it.

We're never satisfied while we're on

Earth. We live, we die, and in a hundred

years, no one remembers us. Cohela says,

"On the face of it, life under the sun

seems like a vapor. It seems like a

mist. It's here for a moment and then

it's gone and you can't seem to grasp on

to anything. That's where we left off

last week. Let's now pick up in verse 12

by humbling our minds and opening our

hearts for the reading of God's word.

Ecclesiastes 1:12.

Ecclesiastes 1:12

I the preacher Kohalef have been king

over Israel and Jerusalem and I applied

my heart to seek and to search out by

wisdom all that is done under heaven.

It is an unhappy business that God has

given to the children of man to be busy

with. I have seen everything that is

done under the sun. And behold, all is

he and a striving after wind. What is

crooked cannot be made straight, and

what is lacking cannot be counted.

I said in my heart, I have great wisdom,

surpassing all who were over Jerusalem

before me, and my heart has had great

experience of wisdom and knowledge. And

I applied my heart to know wisdom and to

know madness and folly.

I perceive that this also is but a

striving after wind. For in much wisdom

is much vexation. And he who increases

knowledge increases sorrow. This is the

word of the Lord. God humble us to learn

what this means. Amen.

All right. We're going to look at four

things from this text today. I'm going

to break it into four parts. The first

is we're going to look at the test case.

What this means, this test case. Second,

we're going to evaluate the findings of

the test case. Third, we're going to

consider the truth about wisdom. And

fourth, we're going to consider the way

beyond what's laid for us here.

So, let's start with the test case

looking down at verse 12.

You'll notice first that the perspective

of the text changes from the third

person to the first person.

I the preacher, I Cohelf.

Chapter 1:1 introduces this character

and introduces us to a summary of what

he is thinking and where he is when this

thought experiment begins. But in verse

12, the perspective changes to the

character himself, Cohelith, Solomon,

talking. And one of the things we've

said as we introduce this book is that

whoever finally wrote this down, the

author clearly has King Solomon in mind.

We're supposed to hear this as though

Solomon himself is speaking or at least

someone exactly like Solomon. I think

it's way more likely that it is Solomon,

but you can go back and listen to the

first message for that one. For those

who are new to the biblical narrative,

Solomon was one of the greatest kings of

Israel.

He was relatively he was the son of

David. He ascended to the throne as a

child when David his father was killed

or died rather. And um he's famously

known for God coming to him in his youth

and going ask me for anything and I'll

give it to you. And Solomon goes, "Well,

instead of asking for wealth and riches

and land and military dominance and like

mountains of ice cream, I know what

would you have asked for when you were a

kid." He asks for the wisdom to lead his

people.

And God understandably is delighted by

this request that that Solomon's

thinking about how to govern well for

the glory of his name as opposed to his

own personal gain. And so God grant him

this profound supernatural wisdom and

everything else, land, wealth, power,

all of that.

Solomon took what God gave him and he

established a time of peace and

prosperity in the land that had never

been known before and has never been

known since.

Solomon was a really good king up to a

certain point.

Verse 12 says, "I Cohelith have been

king over Israel in Jerusalem." Now,

this import this information about the

speaker is important. And it's important

because the speaker is about to conduct

an experiment. He is about to search out

by wisdom everything under the sun to

determine the answer to his question.

What does man gain from all this? In

verse 13, he wants to know if I'm just

wise enough and do this right enough,

can wisdom answer this question? And

when he uses the word wisdom, he has in

mind the broader Hebrew concept. He's

not thinking the way we might think of

like a an expert in their field or

something like that. He's thinking about

like the Old Testament concept of wisdom

is being able to see the big picture,

discerning what's true and acting in a

way that leads to life. It's this broad

how to be a good person kind of that's

Hebrew wisdom.

He's thinking of the disciplined and

comprehensive effort to understand and

navigate life under God.

He isn't talking about getting good

grades on his homework. He's talking

about the pursuit of a good,

God-honoring life. the good life, a wise

life, the highest kind of life a person

in this world can attain in their

perspective.

So that was a lot of information. Let me

just succinctly restate everything I

just said. The king of Israel is

interested in conducting some research.

He wants to know if pursuing wisdom can

help man determine what is valuable

under the sun.

And of the things we're supposed to

assume here, one of them is that the

speaker, who is King Solomon, is

uniquely qualified to answer this

question. He is the ideal test case.

First off, he's king, which means he has

significant resources at his disposal.

During Solomon's reign, I already said

he became extravagantly wealthy, more

wealthy than we've can even really

understand. Second, he has time. He said

he established a peace that lasted

virtually his entire reign. So he wasn't

off fighting wars. He wasn't dealing

with difficult issues. He was free to

explore these questions. Third, as king,

he has authority to do whatever he

wants. So there's basically no sphere of

society he can't access. He can go learn

about what it means to hang out at the

yach club, and he can go learn what it

it's like to go hang out in the alley

with the people who live on the street.

There's nothing off limits to him.

I don't think I'd be allowed in the yach

club.

Solomon,

additionally,

has been, I don't know what the word is,

infused with divine wisdom. He's been

granted this divine wisdom from God that

makes him more intellectually,

cognitively capable than is normally

possible for human beings.

He is Tony Stark, Sherlock Holmes, and

Will Hunting wrapped up into one guy's

mind. He's uniquely qualified is my

point to try to ask and try to answer

this question.

Does wisdom get you closer to

understanding what is ultimately

valuable? If you're super smart, super

rich, have a ton of time, you're super

disciplined, and super willing to to try

to answer these questions.

So, he's the ideal test case. But even

more than being the ideal test case,

verse 13, he says he literally did it.

He conducted the test. He did the real

version of it. Verse 13 says, "I applied

my heart to seek and to search by wisdom

all of a sudden under heaven." He

devoted himself to it from the core of

his being. This was not a dabbling of

curiosity.

This wasn't a sort of casual explan

exploration. This was a disciplined,

deliberate pursuit that was rigorous,

thoughtful, and comprehensive.

He sought out by wisdom everything under

the sun until he was done looking.

We have all met people who like to

dabble in things. Lots of us have lots

of interests, right? Not as many of us

have met experts, people who are experts

in their field. I remember going to

seminary

and sitting in a class with someone who

was an expert in a specific book of the

Bible.

Did you know that there's experts in

specific books of the Bible?

And when they start talking about it,

you realize they've thought of stuff

that has never even occurred to you. And

they've considered all 15 ways of

thinking about it and come to an

educated opinion about how they think it

should be understood.

It dawns on you. There's such a

enormous difference between someone

casually exploring something and someone

being disciplined and rigorous in their

pursuit of understanding something.

Solomon is the latter.

That is Solomon in this text.

He was like that about all of life. So

let's now consider what he found. He ran

the experiment. What did he find? Let's

look at the findings.

Solomon begins with a tragic conclusion.

It is an unhappy business, he says in

verse 13, that God has given to the

children of men to be busy with. Why?

Verse 14. Well, I saw everything that's

done under the sun, and behold, it's all

he

striving after wind.

What does that mean? Well, first it

means that despite his findings, we all

have God-given work to do under the sun.

He says, "God gave this to us." The fact

that nothing is solid and that nothing

is conclusive and the the question of

value keeps eluding him, none of that

does anything to undermine the point

that we still have God-given business to

do and a life to be busy with.

No matter what I say from this pulpit

about the meaning and the value of

things, we all still have to go to bed

and get up and go to work tomorrow so

that our kids have food to eat. We have

business given to us by God under the

sun. Nothing changes that.

But he labels it as unhappy business.

So it's worth asking why would he call

it that?

I see two reasons in this text.

The first is that it turns out wisdom

does not get you any closer to figuring

out what actually matters. All it does

is reveal everything is actually hevel.

All our work, energy, and effort is

still chasing after wind. In other

words, wisdom detected nothing of

ultimate value in this exploration.

There's nothing you can accomplish,

nothing you can earn, nothing you can be

given, nothing you can do about the

problem of death, about the unrelenting

march of time, about the constantly

changing yet never really altering pro,

you know, cycles of the world.

There is no pyramid you can build, no

monument to your own glory that is big

enough and strong enough to prevent the

next guy from coming along after you die

and scratching out your name and writing

his own.

That's a real example if you weren't

here last week in Egyptian archaeology.

There's something worse than realizing

it's all hell.

Cohelith ran a bunch of empirical

experiments.

He says in verse 14, "I've seen

everything. I saw it." This conclusion

did not come from him sitting in a room

somewhere wondering about it. This

conclusion did not emerge from him

contemplating the stars.

He went and he saw. He went and he spoke

to people. He went and he saw with his

own eyes all that's done under the sun

and asked, "What does man gain here?

What does man gain there? Does anyone

else have any ideas of where I should go

to find the answer to my question?"

Having asked all the right questions and

having pursued every available threat of

evidence, he's concluded first that

wisdom isn't the answer. And second that

something is fundamentally wrong with

the world.

He says in verse 15, "What is crooked

cannot be made straight and what is

lacking cannot be counted.

He determines that there is something

fundamentally bent about life that

wisdom cannot heal.

Further, he says that there is something

missing, but he can't quite figure out

what it is. It cannot be counted. He

says, "What is crooked cannot be made

straight. What is lacking cannot be

counted. Therefore, it is an unhappy

business that God has given to man under

the sun.

We're called to work hard, to love our

neighbors, to do justice, to create

flourishing, to raise our families, to

care for our aging parents, to even

pursue wisdom as a good in this world.

But none of this will give us something

that we'll have forever. None of this

can heal the world of what is broken.

None of this can restore to the world

what's been lost. And of course, from

the Bible's perspective, what is broken,

what is lost happened on that tragic day

in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve sinned

against God and invited God's curse upon

creation, bringing sin and death into

our world. That's what's bent. And by

driving us out of the garden and away

from his presence, we've been God has

been having to by his grace reconcile us

to himself

step by step over redemptive history.

That's what's missing full communion

with God.

So if wisdom helps us observe the world,

but it doesn't help us fix what is

broken, what is wisdom for, and what did

this experiment ultimately do? Let's

look at the truth about wisdom.

Looking back at verse 16, Solomon says

in his heart, "I have acquired great

wisdom, surpassing all who were over

Jerusalem before me, and my heart has

had great experience of wisdom and

knowledge."

So if Solomon is the ideal test case to

riddle this mystery out, we might say

that in the end, despite his findings,

it was in fact a successful experiment.

He actually did gain more wisdom than

anyone before him. His heart was

instructed. It says in great experience

and wisdom and knowledge, he came to

know more. He became a true expert in

all the fields of life. And it turns out

he went even further. It says in verse

17, he applied his heart to know wisdom

and to know madness and folly. And this

also says he perceived to be striving

after wind. So Solomon sought to go do

everything right and found it was all

hell.

Then he took it on himself to go see

what it's like to do everything wrong,

folly and madness,

and found that that also was striving

after wind.

Madness

refers to being super irrational.

Folly means choosing to engage in

actions that lead to brokenness and

harm.

Some of us think if we can't choose

wisdom, if we don't feel smart enough to

do the wise life, that we might as well

say, "Forget it. Let's get hammered.

Let's go blow our money at the casino.

Let's go engage in madness and folly.

Let's go see what happens. We might not

have a prosperous or a wise life, but

surely it will be more enjoyable that

way, right?"

And of course, that way of life, you get

some semblance of joy in the beginning.

But that way of life follows the law of

diminishing returns. The more you put

into it, the less you get out of it

until in the end you're getting nothing

from it. It's just making you more and

more miser miserable.

I'm not an expert, but I have dabbled in

that way of life. I have embraced

madness and folly as a way of life. And

I agree with Solomon. It's striving

after wind.

You tell yourself if I just get a little

more of whatever that thing is that I

feel like I need just a little bit more

but it's chasing wind.

So Solomon having learned all this

having discerned the true value of

wisdom and the true value of madness and

folly concludes in verse 18 in much

wisdom is much vexation and he who

increases in knowledge increases in

sorrow.

Greater wisdom increases sorrow because

it exposes us to reality.

It strips away the myth and the dream

that if I just do this right, I will get

the outcome I'm looking for.

It strips away the lie we tell ourselves

that if I just am smart enough, wise

enough, good enough, read enough books

to do this in exactly the right way, my

actions will equal the outcome that I

desire.

And it's just not true.

It's not the way the world works.

No matter how hard we try, no matter how

much we learn, no matter how good we get

at whatever it is that we're trying to

do, something is still broken and

something is still missing. And it's not

something that we can heal or we can

fix.

There is something fundamentally tragic

about life under the curse. And Cohelith

using wisdom sees it clearly and

presently and presents it to us to look

at and consider.

No matter how diligently I try to guard

my children from the influence of sin in

the culture and the world, no matter how

much we regulate screen time, no matter

how much we blah blah blah blah blah

blah blah, there is nothing I can do to

protect them from the sin in their own

heart. I can teach them, I can love

them, I can exhort them, I can warn

them, but at the end of the day, I don't

control the outcome. And that's a vexing

thing to feel as a dad with boys going

into teenagers years.

Cohelith is not being anti-wisdom here.

Cohelith is telling us that wisdom will

never be able to do what only God can

do. Only God will ever be able to take

what is crooked and make it straight.

Only God will be able to take the

unhappy business he's been given has

given us to do and transform it into

something that gives us joy. Only God

can count what is lacking because only

God can restore what is missing, namely

himself.

Cohelith is not saying that wisdom is

the problem in this text. Cohelith is

trying to say that wisdom isn't the

solution.

Wisdom, folly, madness are all hell.

Chasing them as a mean as an end in

themselves is chasing after wind.

Whether you try really hard or whether

you throw up your hands and try not to

try, you don't try at all. Neither

choice will lead you to finally gaining

something permanent under the sun.

Neither will help you properly value

what is most important. So what then

does wisdom really do? It exposes us to

the reality of the world. It rips away

the false story we tell ourselves

and shows us that wisdom itself is not

going to be the answer as badly as we

want it to be.

So, what have we seen so far? So far,

we've seen that Solomon's the ideal test

case to run this experiment.

Second, we saw that he ran the

experiment and he determined that our

lives are unhappy business given to us

by God. And he concluded that based on

that fact, it turns out that even

pursuing a wise life is he. And

additionally, there's something

fundamentally broken about the world.

What is crooked can't be made straight.

What is lacking cannot be counted.

Something is distorted and something is

missing.

We then saw Solomon clarify the truth

about wisdom. His experiment was

successful. He gained all the wisdom in

the world,

even the wisdom of understanding folly

and madness and came to the conclusion

that all of them are heal.

Wisdom is not the problem. It's just not

the solution.

Okay, passage over.

Where do we go from here?

I want to close by talking about the way

beyond this.

Wisdom is good. It just isn't ultimate.

Wisdom can help me live a better life.

It just can't lead me to what is

ultimately valuable in a broken world.

This text is here to tear tear down a

false hope, nor that God might establish

a better one, an eternal one.

Solomon does not want you to take this

information and to become

anti-intellectual.

The purpose is not to make us numb for

our need to grow in wisdom and

righteousness. Rather, the goal is to

humble you,

to bring you low in your estimation of

yourself and of what human beings are

capable of.

It's meant to put us into the position

of someone who desires to receive God's

help rather than someone who's going to

work, work, work, work, work till we

conquer and get the outcome that we're

looking for.

That's the great lie of pursuing wisdom

as an end in itself. And do you think if

I just try hard enough and I just do it

right enough, then everything will be

okay.

If I just learn enough and gain enough

understanding of how stuff works, I'll

be able to eliminate the obstacles that

stand between me and having what I want

in life.

Cohelis says that just isn't true.

Wisdom will not heal the world. It won't

heal society. Wisdom can help

It can nudge us in the right direction.

It can make things a little better for a

little longer. But wisdom cannot do what

only God can do. So he said all that

stuff about things being unchanged last

week.

And you realize when you get to the New

Testament that there actually is a way

that things can change, but only God can

do it.

Only God can intervene into the broken

world and actually change things in a

way that they're now different and

they're fundamentally altered. The good

news is that what only God can do, God

has done.

Here's this passage from 1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1 in light of what we've just

been talking about in Ecclesiastes. 1

Corinthians 1:es 20-31.

Where's the one who is wise?

Where's the scribe? Where's the great

debater of this age? Has not God made

foolish the wisdom of the world?

For since, in the wisdom of God, the

world did not know God through wisdom,

it pleased God through the folly of what

we preach to save those who believe. For

Jews demand signs and Greeks seek

wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified,

a stumbling block to Jews and folly to

Gentiles. But to those who are called,

both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power

of God and the wisdom of God. For the

foolishness of God is wiser than men,

and the weakness of God is stronger than

men. For consider your calling,

brothers. Not many of you were wise

according to worldly standards. Not many

were powerful. Not many were of noble

birth. But God chose what is foolish in

the world to shame the wise. God chose

what is weak in the world to shame the

strong. God chose what is low and

despised in the world, even the things

that are not, to bring to nothing the

things that are, so that no human being

might boast in the presence of God. And

because of him, God, you are in Christ

Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God,

righteousness and sanctification and

redemption, so that as it is written,

"Let the one who boasts boasts in the

Lord."

Man, doesn't it feel like Paul was

reading Ecclesiastes that morning before

he got up and wrote that?

It turns out our pursuit of wisdom

wasn't wrong. It was just misdirected.

It's right for us to want to see the

world healed. It's right for us to want

to fix what's bent, to account for

what's missing. The mistake is thinking

that we're wise enough to do it

ourselves. We are meant to lift our eyes

up above what we cannot do to what God

has done by sending Christ in the flesh

for us.

by sending Christ in the flesh to heal

what's broken and to restore what's been

lost, our fellowship with him.

Is wisdom ultimately he? Yes. Does it

still have a role? Yes. Wisdom is only a

vapor if it fails to lead you to the one

in whom all the treasure of wisdom and

knowledge may be found. Colossians

chapter 2:3. Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is at the end of all true

wisdom, life with him, communion with

him. He is the answer to the question,

what actually matters?

His life is the answer to the question,

how do I actually do it right? As Sam

pointed out earlier,

his living, dying, and rising again is

what gives everything its ultimate

value.

Wisdom can't fix us. It's not just that

the world needs to be fixed. It's not

just that the world needs to be changed.

We need to be changed. If we're not

changed, no amount of wisdom in the

world is going to help us.

In the movie Goodwill Hunting, near the

end, you realize that this brilliant

Will Hunting who makes some of the great

math minds of was it MIT or Harvard or

wherever he is, he they feel dumb

compared to him because he's so

intelligent and yet he can't let a girl

love him.

He's so broken and distorted inside that

he can't do anything to change himself.

It takes the love of Robin Williams, a

father figure, to hold him in his arms

and go, "Well, it's not your fault." And

this love comes from the outside into

his life, changes him.

It transforms him into the kind of

person who's ready to now go into the

world and receive love like a wise

person.

Do you want to be wise

and use wisdom correctly so that your

life does not turn out to be he? If so,

seek the son of God. Turn to the love of

God and let him heal you. Even wisdom is

he. So seek the God who makes us wise.

Let's pray.